


Just Save Someone

by Sarah_JAG (msdonnatemplenoble)



Series: Donna Noble Will Be Saved, A Post "Journey's End" Fix-it Drabble Series [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, Comfort, Crossing Timelines, Crossover, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Drabble Sequence, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Humor, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6554173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msdonnatemplenoble/pseuds/Sarah_JAG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor had no choice. He had to erase Donna's memory. He couldn't let her die. Not her. Not after all the times and the many ways Donna Noble had saved his life. But erasing her memory was a fate worse than death and he knew it. The Doctor was determined to reunite with his favourite ginger and make her complete once more. He had lost too many people he loved already.  He would not lose her too. The Doctor acknowledged he would need help of course, and who better to help him than himself? He was a Time Lord, after all. Time would bend to his will. He would save Donna or would destroy the universe trying!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Save Someone

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of Post Journey's End Drabbles that will have the Tenth Doctor trying to find a way to save Donna Noble's memories and reunite with her by seeking help from the smartest men he knows; himself. He will travel throughout his timeline to discover what it will take to save Donna from a fate worse than death before it is too late. After all, he is a Time Lord and the laws of time will bow down to him!
> 
> He'd need help and who better to help him, than himself?  
> Who else would be a bigger pain too?  
> How would it all end?  
> How would the timelines be affected or would they?  
> How would Donna be affect? Could she even survive?  
> And if she did, wouldn't that make her an impossible hybrid herself?
> 
> The Doctor is opening up a can of worms and this series of drabbles is going to explore just that!

He hadn’t felt like this since landing in London a handful of years ago. The Doctor ran his hand through his rain drenched hair, trailing it all the way to the back of his neck where he paused, holding it there. He was staring at an image only he could see. It was the image of Donna, unconscious upon her bed back in Chiswick. It flashed before him and he brought his hand around to join its mate as he pressed the heels against his eyes, trying to block it out.

Her voice haunted him. She pleaded with him not to do it. Cried, desperate, gulping sobs… Begging him. Trusting that he wouldn’t betray her, but he didn’t have time to explain. Just like he didn’t have time to explain to Rose before he lost her at Canary Wharf. He dropped his hands from his eyes and gripped the edge of the TARDIS’ centre console. A bitter smirk crept upon his normally jovial lips, the irony was not lost on him.

A Time Lord, running out of time. It would be almost comical if the results of such a thing were not so damn tragic and unfair, he mused. He felt his jaw lock in a desperate attempt to keep from screaming, or sobbing. Perhaps even both.

The Doctor looked up and glanced around the empty room. Was it really just hours ago that its walls reverberated with the sounds of his friends and loved ones’ voices? Forlorn, the Doctor dragged a hand along the console, feeling the desperate, sad hum of his TARDIS in the back of his mind.

“I know,” he whispered aloud to his ship. The TARDIS was hurting as well. She had loved having Donna on board, relishing in the way she would knock him down a peg when he needed it. He knew she had found a way to alert Donna to her presence before he…

The Doctor swallowed hard and slammed a fist into a wall as he staggered back toward what should have been his room. He stumbled along, not paying attention, just trying to blindly get somewhere, anywhere where he wouldn’t see her ghost or feel her presence. After 900 plus years, the Doctor knew the way. He didn’t have to pay much attention where he was heading. So there was little doubt how he found himself at the wrong location. As he reached for the door handle, lifting his head to enter, he was shocked when he discover he was at the wrong door! This was the door to…

“DO YOU FIND THIS FUNNY?!” he shouted though there was no one visible. The Doctor twirled around, his chocolate brown eyes had melted into pools of darkness as they flashed with anger, “Well do you?!” he insisted, “put it back! Put my bloody room back where it belongs and don’t you ever shift Don… Her room about again, do you hear me?!” The Doctor was panting he was so angry, teeth gnashing as he fought to control himself, lest the TARDIS would toss him out the next time they entered the time vortex! 

He dropped his head, chin to his chest before he turned his back to the door and slid down its length to the floor. The Doctor bent up his knees and wrapped his arms about them, lowering his forehead down to them. His rain soaked clothes, clinging to his lithe body were uncomfortable, yet he simply ignored them. A small penance perhaps or just too much effort? A little of both he suspected. Instead, the Doctor placed one of his hands at the back of his head and attempted to run his fingers up towards his crown, scraping his own nails gently against his scalp the way Donna sometimes would. While watching movies or chatting away in the TARDIS’ library, he would occasionally (okay, often) rest his head in her lap for her to do just that. Sometimes, when they had a trying, or upsetting time of it and in need of some comfort, he would as well. Not that he ever admitted to it. Needing the comforting gesture and the warmth of Donna’s lap and the sound of her laughter. He never needed to say anything. She knew. Somehow she always knew. Without a word, only a roll of her eyes that could be the bluest of blue or a dazzling emerald green depending upon her mood, Donna would let out an exaggerated sigh for show and gesture for him to come over so she could run her fingers through his hair. Without looking up, he stilled his own hand a few moments later, letting it rest upon the back of his neck. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same as when Donna did it, he admitted. Nothing would ever be the same. Nothing would ever be the way it was when Donna was still here.

His shoulders rose and fell as he silently cried for his best mate who was oh, so much more than that, only now, she would never know. Could not know. Because knowing would kill her, and it was all his fault. He had lost her.

Just like Rose, he thought, or was that the TARDIS echoing back in his mind? Not that it mattered. He was the last of his people, destined to travel alone throughout time and space. To those who dared to journey with him, he was the harbinger of pain and devastation. He deserved to remain alone; that way he could not hurt anyone else he grew to love.

Was that really the curse of the Time Lords, or just his own private hell? To lose everyone? His hearts were heavy. His emotions raw. He could try to justify what he did all he wanted, but truthfully, his motives were selfish. It was selfish and it was wrong and he knew it even as he was reaching out to place his fingertips against her temples. He understood that but he did not care. He would not lose her too. It did not matter that what he was doing was very wrong. He was taking away the one thing Donna held more precious than anything else; her memories of him, the TARDIS, the places they’d seen, the things they had done. 

Their time together.

In that instant, he killed her. As surely as if he stabbed her through the heart. He had killed her and he knew it.

The Doctor wasn’t sure how he was going to find a way to go on after this. He only managed to come through losing Rose at Canary Wharf because of Donna though their interaction had been brief. Still, there was something about the mouthy, insecure ginger that drew him out of his misery and forced him to plod on.

Then he met Martha. The Doctor let his hand drop to his side as he raised his head up and leaned it against the door. It was almost as if it took an obscene amount of effort to support it himself. He groaned softly. He knew she had forgiven him, but he still hadn’t forgiven himself for his treatment of her. She was capable and clever and he let things go all sideways with her. He allowed the weight of his head to pull it to one side so he was staring out into the hallway. Still, if it hadn’t been for Donna being drawn up into the TARDIS, helping him defeat the Empress of the Racnoss, and grounding him like only she could… Weeeeellllll, he never would have been able to move past his pain and allow another companion to join him on the TARDIS. Even one as brilliant as the future Dr. Martha Jones.

The Doctor brought his head back forward, resting it against his hands, still upon his knees.

“Donna,” he breathed, though just saying her name was difficult. Donna Noble had helped him defeat the Racnoss and save the Earth on Christmas Eve, in her wedding dress. Her wedding dress _with no pockets_ he smiled to himself briefly as he recalled her shouting those words at him. Donna Noble, whose own wedding was nothing more than a ploy by an alien to repopulate her species. A nefarious plot, in which she unwillingly starred and played the fool in front of her family and friends, yet she was still upset when the man who betrayed her, died as an end result.

The Doctor felt his hearts clench. He squeezed his eyes shut at the fresh pool of tears threatening to re-christen his cheeks in her name.  


“No,” he growled, his eyes snapping open, staring straight ahead, “no, this is not over. I am a Time Lord, I have a time machine and I can fix this. I can fix Donna Noble!”


End file.
